BASEUS actually is a brand slogan which means “base on use” or in other words, “to overcome difficulties with the greatest ease”. This is a company that was established in 2009 in China, creating phone accessories especially for iPhone models.

So what’s so special about Baseus accessories when there are tons of accessories available in Brunei? For one, it has a strong branding presence as a third-party accessories provider for Apple’s iPhones. Secondly, the prices are quite competitive and reasonable to begin with.

This is the first presence of Baseus in Brunei which was made possible by Chipmac Technology. The ribbon cutting ceremony was officiated by Managing Directors Tim Ang and Paul Lim of Chipmac Technology.

Tim Ang was excited that Baseus, an international brand, which had penetrated markets such as Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, the Philippines and Russia, is now available in Brunei Darussalam. He explained, the company shares three objectives – to share with consumers the latest mobile accessories available in the market, to provide customers with high grade refurbished Apple products as they are both economical and environmentally friendly, and to provide innovative repair service for Apple products.

Previously Chipmac Technology provided repair service for Apple products as well as selling refurbished iPhones. Now they have expanded their business by selling Baseus products. I hope to send my Apple products especially my iMac and Macbook Air for some cleansing and perhaps, even increasing my RAM 😀

During the launch, they had a special discount for a few days where customers can enjoy 15% discounts on the accessories as well as lower priced refurbished iPhones. I managed to scoop a few accessories for myself especially the wireless charging iPhone X casing – my best purchase of the month 😀

Baseus is located at Airport Mall, next to DST and you can still enjoy 15% discounts on all Baseus products until 11th August 2018. You can also follow them on Facebook though they don’t have an IG account just yet. For more details, you can call 234 2503 / 881 4942.

The crowd enjoying the 15% discount and still ongoing until 11th August

The Managing Director of Chipmac Technology appreciating the customers and media during the launch

Plenty of accessories to choose from

Perhaps my best accessory purchase of 2018. I couldn’t find such accessory when I was in Singapore recently. Even at Sim Lim Square. I was surprised this was available at Baseus and I bought it without second thoughts. Furthermore, you can still enjoy 15% discount.

This can be very useful. I didn’t get this since I already have one in my car.

Vincent Pao with the staff of Bilster Technologies with the new Brother printers line up

Brother printers are as popular these days because of its cost effectiveness. The previous models have been well received from local consumers.

Now Bilster Technologies have brought in newer models to the Brunei market and now the Brother printers are on offer which will include refillable ink-tank printers like the Brother T310 and the Brother T510W plus laser printers perfect for SME and home businesses like the Brother MFC-L2715DW.

The Brother T310, T510W and T710W is an all-in-one A4 printer with speeds of up to 27 pages per minute and with the ability to handle to printing of multi-pages of documents with the help of its onboard 128 of RAM (faster printing). The three models will have refillable ink-tanks, the printing output can reach up to 6,500 pages per full tank for monochrome printing and 5,000 pages for colour printing.

The Brother T310 is priced at BND 238, the Brother T510W is priced at BND 288, the Brother T170W is priced at BND 318. The T510W and T710W have wireless capabilities.

If you want for business printing, then check out the Brother MFC-L2715DW and the Brother MFC-L8900CDW. Both are laser printers and also support wireless printing.

Norsurya Hj Sabali, Executive in charge of Business Development at Bilster Technologies said that the Brother printers provide three years warranty coverage and this gives more confidence and trust on Brother printers to the customers.

For more information, you can call 223 0871 / 223 0872 of visit their their showroom at G27, Citis Square.

Posing with Mr. Hoe, CEO of CUCKOO Malaysia for one of the photo contest

What a fortunate treat for the local media from Brunei who had the privilege to visit the factories of CUCKOO (multi-cooker and water purifier). The first visit was at Yangsan factory located in Busan, South Korea.

I would have thought it would be stricter for companies as big asCUCKOO to allow visitors to see the production line of CUCKOO. So it was such a fitting trip that we as the media were given the opportunity to see how a strong brand likeCUCKOO made it so popular in the Asia Pacific.

The Yangsan factory we visited mainly focused on multi-cookers and kitchen appliances. We were brought to the conference room where delegates from Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore were introduced to the management team of Yangsan Factory.

We learnt that CUCKOO’s multi-cookers are known for four things: Smart Algorithm, Pressure Cooking, Heating Technology and Coating Technology. These advanced technologies helped one to prepare food or meal at a touch of button. At the factory itself, we had a sneak peak on how the functions were created.

For a person who rarely cooks and maybe most of the readers here, how does pressure cooking really helps or an advantage? Imagine you don’t have enough time to cook. By using CUCKOO’s multi-cooker, you can save 70% of your cooking time and that’s with the help of the pressure cooking technology inside CUCKOO multi-cooker. This is very ideal for the working class who has limited time when it comes to cooking.

It’s really hard to explain to those who aren’t familiar with cooking. But I can guarantee you that once a CUCKOO multi-cooker in in your hands, you won’t regret the purchase. It’s no surprise why 70% household in Korea uses CUCKOO brand for their cooking and that shows the Korean really trust their products.

For the record, CUCKOO multi-cooker is sold every 10 seconds in South Korea. How I wish I had the same business model like CUCKOO.

Now saying all that, all these technologies infused in CUCKOO’s appliances are manufactured at Yangsan factory. We saw some of the production lines within the premise and I was impressed with the dedication and precision by the CUCKOO factory workers. You will be surprised the average age of the workers which is around 24-25 years old.

We also had the privilege to visit the Siheung Factory which focuses more on water purifier. It has a similar production line concept like Yangsan and it’s located closer to Seoul. With the two plants in South Korea, they are able to produce more than 4.5 million set annually.

They have around a few hundred workers working behind the scene. All they focus is just their tasks given and I hardly see them having a conversation among themselves. It’s as if they are like human robots in the production line. That’s how discipline the workers are in the factory.

Interestingly enough, Brian Koo Bon Hak, the CEO of CUCKOO Electronics Co. Ltd, mentioned of a plan to build a RM 100 million factory in Malaysia to produce water purifier products. This will help to bridge the demand gap due to the rapid growth in Southeast Asia and Brunei is one of the emerging markets in the water purifier category.

With the presence of media from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore during the media conference at CUCKOO factory in Seoul

One of the production lines for the CUCKOO multi-cooker

The workers are very focused and dedicate when handling the components

One of the semi-conductors used for the multi-cooker

The faulty section where one will commission to see what went wrong with the unit

To celebrate its 10-year anniversary in Brunei, Ericsson invited guests to their Technology Tour, showcasing the company’s 5G and IoT capabilities, smart metering solutions and Technology for Good projects among other new, innovative offerings. The showcase reinforces Ericsson’s position as a market leader at the forefront of communications technology in the country. Martin Wiktorin , County Head of Ericsson Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines and Pacific Islands , 5th from right, and His Excellency Ambassador Hakan Jevrell, Ambassador of Sweden to Singapore and Brunei, 6th from right.

Last week marked Ericsson’s 10-year anniversary in Brunei. To celebrate the milestone, Ericsson invited its country stakeholders to view and experience the latest innovations and technologies during a technology demonstration attended by the Ambassador of Sweden to Singapore and Brunei, His Excellency Hakan Jevrell, and the Honorary Consul of the Embassy of the Netherlands to Brunei, Mr. Maarten Bomers, together with the local operators, telecommunications regulator, government agencies, local SMEs and local education institutes.

The showcase enabled event attendees to experience first-hand how Ericsson is evolving its business portfolio to provide smart solutions to real-world opportunities. “As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, I would like to emphasize our commitment to Brunei and its people through our technology innovations – particularly in 5G, IoT and Cloud,” said Martin Wiktorin , President and Country Manager of Ericsson Singapore and Brunei. “By constantly transforming our business portfolio and providing new, innovative solutions, we are enabling the communications industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve user experience and capture new opportunities.

The following Ericsson offerings were highlighted as part of the demonstrations:

At Ericsson, they strive to create a wireless environment where indoor and outdoor networks perform seamlessly together at all times. Integrated small cells in 5G networks deliver high per-user capacity and rate coverage everywhere, helping to meet the high requirements of network subscribers and tackle the challenges of urbanizing environments. With the potential to improve performance in the macro network by offloading traffic generated in hotspots, the demonstration introduced the industry’s first 5G NR-capable radio (Ericsson AIR products), which are able to support our 5G plug-ins for both Massive MIMO and Multi-User MIMO.

The Ericsson smart metering solution provides a platform for capturing information, monitoring consumption and presenting data from each meter at individual premises. The smart meter solution could be the first step towards IoT in Brunei The IoT application enables a 2-way communication between the smart meters and a centralized system over a wireless data network, enabling near real-time meter reading, charting of household consumption trends, online top-ups/reload and automatic credit control, among other things.

To transform everyday reality as we move into an even more networked society, computer aided technology that uses virtual reality headsets or multi-projected environments betters the consumer experience. In combination with physical environments or props that generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations simulate a user’s physical presence in a virtual or imaginary environment.

Vanessa Teo, founder & CEO of Agrome IQ was invited by Ericsson Brunei to showcase her agriculture technology solutions platform that support modern farmers in making effective decision-making processes to achieve a productive and profitable farm system.

Ericsson’s Director for Brunei Gabriel Hii (center) with Martin Wiktorin , President and Country Manager of Ericsson Singapore and Brunei and Nitin Bansal, Ericsson’s head of network solutions for Southeast Asia, Oceania & India during the 10th anniversary of Ericsson Brunei at The Empire Hotel & Country Club

Rano’s thoughts: It’s good to see the idea of 5G being talked of. This will eventually be a good start for Brunei where smartphones are the highest penetration in the region, meaning that we are quite tech savvy to begin with and have access to technology.

However, that doesn’t necessarily translate to being ready or being in the right market for such technology. I do agree with what Gabriel mentioned that newer technologies such as the implementation of 5G systems (not just referring to mobile network) doesn’t guarantee its feasibility in the country if there is no demand or the lack of it.

For me, a good example is Augmented Reality. It’s good and all but we are not so much into it after a few tries. It’s just wow to our eyes but it’s not a must feature hence the demand for such is still not that great. The same can said to some aspect of 5G and the Internet of Things once it becomes available in Brunei.

I know that South Korea are testing their 5G capabilities for the Pyeonchang Games 2018 right now especially for the user experience where they can view their favourite athletes in real time and from a first person perspective. Now that’s what 5G is capable of. These are the things I would be very keen of.

For now, it’s more of creating a buzz for us to prep in the year end of 2019 where 5G handsets will be slowly introduced.

Thank you, Ericsson for the enlightenment of the 5G upcoming development. It will be nice to see if our local telco providers will engage with your services apart from DST.

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About RA

A blogger since 2002, using platforms from blogspot, joomla and now currently wordpress. A readership that stands on average of 20,000 visits per month. Also on active on social media platform on IG, Facebook and Snapchat (@ranoadidas)

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